Monday, September 6, 2010

Home School at 32,000 Feet

Ahhhh…. Sipping a nice drink over the Pacific, and pushing the recline button down!Once the wheels leave the ground, there’s nothing more you can do.All of the critical things were taken care of (hopefully!), and the items of lesser importance faded from the to-do lists.Now we’re en route!Yahhhoooooo!

The kids are thrilled with the tiny little dinners, and want to save every special plastic fork and stirring stick.Each seat now has it’s own personal video screen with controller, so there is no need to talk, read, or interact with anyone…. You can just plug in and surf channels in your own earphone world.We made sure they took advantange of the views outside the window, but once we were over the open ocean, a movie seemed just fine.Between each movie, however, we did some math and writing homeschool lessons.

Everyone but Eliza had their workbooks in their carryon, so she got “real math” problems.She used the onboard flight data to calculate all the conversion ratios; miles vs. kms, feet vs. meters, celsius vs. fahrenheit. She had to estimate how long it would take to various destinations, and determine our altitude reletive to home, Half Dome & Mt. Everest. She’s also been my personal exchange rate calculator, figuring out the value of noodles in Hong Kong dollars, and dosas in Indian Rupees…She wasn’t that interested until I showed her the bill at the HK airport for 3 juices and a coffee – HK$106!Egads, a hundred bucks for a few drinks???That got her hooked on finding the “real” value in US$’s.(…about $13)

2 comments:

Lupin, Slyvie, Eliza, Paul and Karen;Wow- your sabbatical travels have begun and my thoughts are with you along your journeys. May you see many wonderful birds, magnificent sights, and who knows what splendid creatures you will encounter (aside from yourselves). Bring back colorful stories of your adventures and experiences- I look forward to hearing all about it!Love, Nancy Bruce

I wish you the best of travels...hopefully we'll skype along the way. We didn't chat about school work before you left...I begin teaching math September 7th. So I'll let you know how fast we progress. Glad to see you have begun your work on the plane! We miss you in class already Sylvie! Anna is sad without Eliza at school. Camryn Dutrey is being especially kind to her though.

Himalayan Homecoming

We're taking our family back to South Asia for a Fall Semester Sabbatical! Ever since our 2007 Fulbright semester in India, we've been saving up and planning for our return. We will enroll our own daughters, and teach at Manasarovar Academy, a charity school in Kathmandu serving children of Tibetan refugee families. Paul was granted unpaid leave from his teaching job, and Karen departed one month early from her... read more!

About Me

Karen lives in the Mountains of California, where she works and lives the life of a Naturalist/Park Ranger in Yosemite National Park. Home is with her husband and 3 daughters, though they all recognize that this good Earth is Home in a larger sense. It is this philosophy that draws Karen to the Himalaya, and the people and birds here are like family. The quest to have more people know the fantastic birds they share this sacred land with is a worthy cause. What happens here, happens to the same Earth. We really are all in this together!